Oasis
by bredalot
Summary: In its early stages, insomnia is almost an oasis in which those who have to think or suffer darkly take refuge. Mulder on insomnia, the truth, Scully, and life.


**Disclaimer: The X-Files ain't mine.**

_A/N: This came out at various 3-in-the-morning ramblings. There's not supposed to be any point to this, just like thoughts at that hour go, and the sentences are…well…odd. I enjoyed writing it – there are a lot of my own truths in there, too.

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"In its early stages, insomnia is almost an oasis in which those who have to think or suffer darkly take refuge" - Sidonie Gabrielle

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There are these sorts of endless haunted sleepless nights in which his mind goes just the slightest bit screwy (and Scully would ask how he can tell, with one eyebrow raised and the faintest hint of a smirk hovering at the corners of her mouth, and he'd grin lopsidedly at her, and then she'd shut up and listen). He's always had them. He's never been able to decide whether he likes them or not.

There's a certain appeal to being awake long after the rest of the world has gone to sleep, perhaps a romanticism to the night which leads him to chase the sensations of vertigo and mysticism by waiting on his couch for sleep(lessness) to claim him. Maybe that's why he doesn't use his bed (and here Scully would look at him askance and make a glib remark about the presence of a television by his couch, and he'd scrunch up his mouth and turn halfway away from her, bobbing his head with the acknowledgement of a hit, and she'd laugh, shut up, and listen). But he's been alone for most of his life, and he's developed certain habits that most people consider strange, from sleeping on his couch to simply not sleeping.

Sometimes he calls Scully at absurd hours with absurd revelations, the product of several hours' sleepless vertigo. She answers around the third ring, usually grumbling at him almost before she wakes up (he wonders, sometimes, if anyone else has ever called her at four in the morning and gotten a "Go to hell, Mulder" as a greeting – he also wonders why she's never ignored the rings or taken the phone off the hook or simply hung up on him – it's probably the same curiosity that made him call her in the first place). Every so often, she'll answer on the first ring, wide awake and far more coherent than he is. Even more rarely, she'll call him, simply wanting something to distract herself and reasoning that it's his turn to be roughly awoken by the telephone.

Sometimes he wonders if she ever hangs up and laughs at him and his incomprehensible midnight insanity before going back to sleep.

It's strange, for him, to have someone to share the sleepless nights with, however unwilling she may be. He's used to silent solitude, the sound on the TV turned down almost past the point of hearing, the lights flickering against the grittiness of his wide-open eyes, pervasive darkness invading the corners of his mind. It sounds the stuff of horribly depressing broken-hearted movies, but it's not lonely at all. Perhaps it's just that he can't seem to shut off his brain. He tries, occasionally, when Scully yells at him for not sleeping enough, but really he doesn't like to. He considers his brain his greatest asset (aside from, of course, his dashing good looks and quick wit and funny jokes and . . . hell, maybe it's not as far up there as it would like to be), and he really doesn't like shutting it down, even if it's supposed to be for the good of his health. Sleep is a waste of time, really, and he's learned to get by on fewer than five or six hours of sleep a night. On a good night (though what makes it good, really? It's not as if he wakes up on his "bad" nights any the worse for wear – there's a sort of guilty consciousness throughout the day that bugs him, tells him to get more sleep – it sounds like Scully – but he's not really any more tired).

It's not like staying up until three in the morning has done him any good in normal everyday life; no one else is awake, there's nothing good on television, and he doesn't actually do any work. It's just something he likes to do, and it definitely pays off on those cases where they have stakeout duty or something else that will keep them up until all hours of the night. Scully will fall asleep, and he'll let her, because she likes getting enough sleep (and he likes letting her), but he can stay awake. And perhaps, since the unusual has become the everyday for him and Scully, getting into habits like this isn't such a bad idea.

He also likes thinking at these strange hours of the night. He likes the fuzzy over-clarity of his brain, because it's not something that can be replicated at any other time. He likes watching idly as his thoughts go straying, like sheep let loose, in all sorts of directions. He gets all sorts of revelations like that, and though most people would question the validity of a sleepless three AM discovery, he thinks that's how he finds truth.

He's got this weird passion for the truth. So do many people, he supposes, in the FBI – that's why some of them join, to find the truth. Some of them join to catch bad guys, to help people, as a patriotic duty, but some do join for the truth. He's never found out why Scully joined; she was a Navy brat, so maybe that accounts for some of it, but she was going to be a doctor, and what made her suddenly change her mind? She's got a passion for the truth, too, but sometimes – no, that's not fair, she _came_ with that passion, she did, it's not entirely his own doing. He's made her slightly less fiercely scientific, slightly more believing, but he thinks that if he ever converted her completely he'd lose her. She wouldn't be Scully anymore. And he doesn't think he could deal with losing Scully; he's come very close so many times, and each time he gets more and more frustrated anger, and he's afraid that someday he won't be able to save her, and his anger will get him into trouble. But it would be even worse if she were there and she weren't Scully, if she weren't stoic and skeptical and smart and strong (there are a lot of s-words that go with Scully – maybe that's why Dana never seemed to fit her). So he tries to convince her, but he's glad she fights back, because that's what makes them what they are.

And that's why he likes calling her at all hours of the night – because she always reassures him that she's still there and that she's still Scully, no matter how little she says. It's easy to read her – no, that's a lie, it's really very difficult, but he's got the trick of it (and he is a profiler, after all). And she knows how to read him. And they're good partners. And he likes being her friend. (He wonders why she doesn't seem to have any other friends – none that he's met, anyway. Perhaps it's the X-Files, that the cases have consumed her life as they have his, and she has no time for anyone else. He wonders idly if he ought to feel guilty, or anything other than relieved.)

The X-Files really are an all-consuming endeavor. Once you get started, there's no turning back – if you're going to get into them, then you're going to lose your life to them. Sometimes he regrets this, but he's never been suited to a normal life anyway, and he likes that this path brings him so close to so many truths. He keeps coming close, almost getting it, only to have it torn away from him so harshly he can feel his hands stinging. He doesn't think any normal person could handle this, and that doesn't necessarily mean he's better than them – he is a freak, he's completely abnormal, he's obsessed. And maybe that's why he doesn't sleep – his obsession wears away at his mind, nagging at him at all hours of the night, and he needs all this time to deal with everything that he comes across every day. He lies awake until all hours of the morning, thinking, remembering, processing, meandering in his mind to find the truths that no one else wants to face.

(He won't face his nightmares, but he will face the truth.)


End file.
